


flower through disarray

by xerampelinae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Language of Flowers, M/M, hanakotoba, not quite soulmate au kinda more than mystical synesthesia, soul flower vision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 19:24:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15322545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: “I will never give up on you,” Shiro says, “but most importantly, you can't give up on yourself either.”Keith gazes up at him in wonder, face bruised and swollen, and one of the buds unfurls into a ruby-red peony, familiar-toned and brilliant.Devotion,rote memory whispers to him automatically. Shiro wonders whether the same soul-deep devotion would be visible in his own soul to those who can see.-Some people can read intention in the colors of another's soul. Shiro reads flowers instead.





	flower through disarray

**Author's Note:**

> Questions about Garrison enrollment ages? Me too! See bottom for that thought process.

The Sight expresses itself in different ways. Shiro’s father had apparently known danger as a crackle of electricity between his shoulder blades, not that it had saved him or Shiro’s mother in the end. Commander Ryu at the Garrison has the common Aural Sight, others’ intentions color coded for convenience. The Sight is more common in the Garrison than it is outside; doubtless there are studies into why that is. Shiro, on the other hand, understands through an integration of hanakotoba and the western language of flowers.

Meeting Keith is a revelation. Keith is brilliant by himself: nine years old and holding his ground in top level courses, even distracted and disinterested. In a year he could be at the Garrison, and he was. As young as Shiro had been. Rare. The first time they speak, Shiro realizes that he can see not one but a handful of flowers in Keith.

Only one blooms in Keith's soul then: red spider lilies, elegant and vivid, almost weeping in remembrance and grief. Shiro knows then that he will do anything to give Keith happier blooms.

-

“I will never give up on you,” Shiro says, “but most importantly, you can't give up on yourself either.”

Keith gazes up at him in wonder, face bruised and swollen, and one of the buds unfurls into a ruby-red peony, familiar-toned and brilliant. _Devotion,_ rote memory whispers to him automatically. Shiro wonders whether the same soul-deep devotion would be visible in his own soul to those who can see.

-

The Galra are--the Galra are shades of aconite and milfoil--of misanthropy and war. The other prisoners, the other gladiators all wear bleached-out mourning brides-- _I have lost all_ \--or aloe--for sorrow. Shiro imagines his soul doesn’t look much different from theirs.

-

The other Paladins have several flowers, always matching to their lion but with some variation in hue. Keith's flowers are always that same, grieving red as his spider lilies. After they meet again--after Kerberos--it takes Shiro a moment to recognize Keith's third bloom as a forget-me-not.

He wonders why Keith's soul is laid out so extensively under his Sight, if it's because he finds Keith so important to him that his Sight unfolds lovingly and reflexively. Keith has always been Shiro’s right hand; forming Voltron only makes that truth explicit to the wider world. (He wonders how much pain he has brought Keith, to give his heart another bloom in his absence, if it had been because of him. He wonders when Keith’s soul reshaped itself again. Had it been in the lonely desert or was it at the Garrison, in the peculiar loneliness of being at once surrounded and alone?

He cannot ask Keith if it is worth it, not when he knows the weight and worth of devotion. Shiro may doubt many things, but never Keith.)

“It’s good to have you back,” is all Keith says. 

-

After Shiro disappears, Keith begins to see flowers. Only when he sits in Black’s cockpit, and only on those he can see while there, but. He remembers late, late nights staring at the sky and Shiro, for once, describing his Sight. There are some people ( _Lance_ ) who speak easily and unprompted about their Sight. But not Shiro. 

“It was my grandmother's,” Shiro says. “She died before I can remember, but my Sight follows hers.”

“Tell me?” Keith says, when the promise of more words hangs in the air but withdrawn.

“My grandfather took me to learn ikebana after we found out, after I was old enough to use the sharp scissors they use safely. Even if it hurt to be reminded of my grandmother.”

Keith settles his weight closer to Shiro. “It must have brought back good things as well, if he wanted you to learn.”

“I hope so,” Shiro says. Keith will remember his tone, for the first time Shiro revealed a small vulnerable part of himself; a part of the whole that he kept concealed as much as it was forgotten as part of the Garrison’s chosen moniker of Golden Boy.

“What did his soul look like to you?” Keith asks suddenly.

“Violets,” Shiro says fondly. “Blue, for love and faithfulness.”

It is worth something to know your feelings are soul-deep, Keith learns then, however much it frightens some. It is worth it even when you have lost something, and the thought settles Keith enough that he doesn’t ask what flower Shiro sees in his own soul.

-

“I love you,” Keith says, and cuts off Shiro’s arm.

Shiro falls, gasping. “Keith?” he says, tone altered, almost the old kind of familiar, the kind that he’d thought lost for the second time Shiro spent in Galra imprisonment. A single flower unfurls in his chest, violet-blue like the lights in the Black Lion. The other buds constrict and shrink.

Then the platform is shaking to pieces and Keith is reaching out. They fall together.

-

Cradled by Keith’s palm, Shiro shifts as he lights up violet with quintessence. For a moment the flower in Shiro’s chest burns just as bright. As the quintessence fades away, the flower disappears--that’s not right, Keith thinks; the soul is still there, only the borrowed perception of it as a flower has gone.

“You found me,” Shiro sighs as he lets Keith catch him. Unseen, a forget-me-not unfurls in Shiro’s chest, violet in complement to Keith’s red. Remember, the flowers say, the souls say. True love.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bastille's "Fake It", "Show me joy, flower through disarray."  
> Why are Shiro and Keith ten years old when they enter the Garrison? Well, ever since I started watching Voltron, I've been wondering how you get piloting experience at an institution that is ostensibly a college (most ballparks put most of the Paladins at average college entry age of 17 to 19). So I broached the topic with my dad who at 10, went off for roughly 5 years prep school, 1 year high school (junior+senior year), 2 years college, 1 year grad school (when he decided to marry my mom). But I digress. Not everybody can do the That Kind Of Boomer White Person Education...but Shiro's grandpa felt it was worth it, and of course Shiro thinks Keith is worth it and helps him find a shitton of scholarships and grants. The prep school section was probably a small, highly competitive program.  
> (I wrote most of this fic on the bus this morning. Your girl is now 1/3 through summer lecture and just about 1/2 through summer lab so phew. Cs get degrees and chemistry is hard.)


End file.
